


The Huntsman's Ring

by SaturnChild



Series: SaturnChild's Frattweek4 [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1600s, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, BAMF Matt Murdock, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Developing Relationship, Foggy the Cat, Historical Inaccuracy, Huntsman Frank Castle, Hurt Frank Castle, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury Recovery, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-binary Matt Murdock, Prompt: Ring, Self-Hatred, Soldier Frank Castle, Witch Hunts, Witch Matt Murdock, Witchcraft, burn scars, frattweek4, he/him pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29333694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnChild/pseuds/SaturnChild
Summary: Frank should have been cleverer. He’s been warned since he was a little kid not to wander into the woods at night, specially when the moon is full and bright, for that’s when the witches perform their pagan rituals. But he’s now a man weathered from war and unafraid of stories.Searching for the ring he had lost in his last hunt, his late wife’s ring, he delves into the forest. For his surprise, someone (or something) had found it already.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Maria Castle (past), Frank Castle/Matt Murdock, Matt Murdock & Elektra Natchios
Series: SaturnChild's Frattweek4 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150229
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: Fratt Week





	The Huntsman's Ring

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first time writing something in a Medieval(ish) setting, but the idea was fun to develop and write so I hope you guys enjoy the results.  
> Basically, Frank was a soldier for the crown and lost his family to something known as "Sweating Sickness", at the time it was a mysterious disease that struck England in a series of epidemics. Today it's known as Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. At the time, it took a lot of lives.   
> Anyway, the story begins as he decides to leave the city and his duty as a soldier in the Scotland x England wars and escapes for a small village, surviving there as a huntsman.   
> Hope you all like it!

Frank had heard stories about the woods since he was a little kid, grabbing at his mother’s skirts and his father’s breeches. Stories about the wolves, foxes and bears. Of the enormous moose that could tramp a man to death easily. The stories of the crows that would pick the body of the dead, pluck out their eyes and eat their festering meat.

His favorite stories, however, where the ones about the wild cats. The three colored ones, the ones with one eye blue, one eye brown. The black cats and, specially, the ginger cats. Those cats that dwelled in the trees and the woods, they said, were the shapeshifting witches that lived in cabins hidden from human eyes. 

Mother would tell that those witches were not unlike those of Salem. They inhabited the forest, stayed out of sight for most of the day and by night, used the dead’s organs for their pagan rituals. 

They would bewitch men with their beauty and drag them inside their lairs and make them lose their wits.

Once upon a time, Frank believe every single word and story his mama would tell him. Once, when he had the heart of a boy and the eyes of a dreamer. But then, he left for the war against the Scottish covenants. He saw the brutality of man in Godless lands, he saw treachery and gore. He saw hunger, pestilence and death.

He caused it too. More than once.

Frank came back, a year later, now living in the city, to find the love of his life. A daughter of farmers, now building her life with her own shop. She liked to remind Frank she was independent and didn’t need him as her bodyguard, he recalled. He remembered smiling and telling her he only wished to be by her side, as long as he could.

Not too many months later, they had Lisa Barbara. And found out she, above all else, was the true love of his life. She was born with wild curls just like her father, although the color was light brown, like Maria’s. Her eyes were hazel just like her mother’s too.

She smiled on her first days of life. She was a ray of sunshine.

He was called back to war not too long after, leaving his life in the city behind with his pregnant wife and his 3 year old baby girl. He came back with his eyes full of ghosts, darkness crawling in his mind at night, and hands that always felt stained with blood. With those hands, he held his baby boy, Francie, almost one year old by now.

His baby girl barely remembered him, but she hugged him tight and didn’t let go.

He spent all the time he could by their side, except the times he was forced back to court, to loud feasts and parties he didn’t want any part on. They celebrated a war for blood against people only seeking to protect their families, and yet, Frank didn’t see any way out of it.

Not one that wouldn’t harm his family.

Castle heard his wife tell stories and sing lullabies to both their kids. He hugged them as much as he could; he’d be called again to war and he was well aware. 

Three months later, he leaves for his duty. His daughter cries but he tells her to be strong and that he loves them more than the world itself. He stays two years away, only to come back to find his Maria in her death bed.

Sweating sickness, the town’s doctor called it. There wasn’t a cure. Some made it through, some didn’t. All they could hope for was to keep her well-hydrated and her fever down. She doesn’t get better. In six days, he buries his wife. His kids, that mostly don’t know him, hold tight to his hands. He’s the last thing they have. And they are all he has too.

Frankie gets sick first. And a day later, so does Lisa. 

He prays for a god he had forsaken in the battlefield, covered in guts, mud and blood. It took nine months to bring them to the world, but it only takes five days to take them away from him. 

He got sick, too. Hoped that this would be it. That he’d follow them to whatever heavens awaited them beyond this life. But he wakes up each day feeling stronger than the previous one. In three days, he’s as strong as an ox once more. 

He buries his kids by their mother’s side. Takes Maria’s wedding ring, Frankie’s boots and Lisa’s bonnet. The one she wore when she was younger, when all was well in their lives. When Frank’s ghosts were strangers and brothers in battle. Not his family. Never his family.

He’d buried his mother, his father and his wife. But he never thought once he’d bury his children.

Castle leaves, with the three belongings from his loved ones. Finds the village north from the one he grew up in. He is now a deserter from the crown and they will soon send troops to find him. Until then, he builds himself a hut of rock foundation by the woods. He finds the gears and tools that his father, once a huntsman, used to work. And so, he became the village’s huntsman.

For three years, he endures the silence of their absence. The lacking of purpose and warmth in his chest that once got him moving from a battlefield to another. He sells salted meal and pelts for the other inhabitants. He lets his beard grow thicker and thicker. Hides himself from the crown and the life of luxuries he had after he joined the queen’s army.

He wanted no part in their war. 

Now, after all he’s lived through, he still recalls his mother’s words. He pays them no heed whatsoever. He wades through the forest at night, like a fool. Knowing of all the dangers, even if not entirely convinced of witches as he once had been in his boyhood. His mother, rest her beautiful soul, had been a superstitious women. Put salt on the windows and made the sign of the cross every time she encountered a ginger cat wandering through the village. 

Frank doesn’t believe in much now beyond the horror of men and disease now. His mother, however, was not wrong in the warnings of all the animals. And Frank, the fool that he is, doesn’t bring much but a hunting knife in his little adventure. And that’s how he finds himself pinned down by the great, big yellow eyes of a beast of a wolf.

He’s growling at him, now that he finally noticed his presence. And Frank keeps as quiet as he can, unmovable. His eyes straying away from the wolf’s to go back to the reason he meandered like a dimwit into the forest: his wife’s wedding ring, which had fallen from the current in his neck during the hunting earlier this morning.

He came ill prepared for this rescue trip, but he has faced worse odds before. His hand slowly stray to the knife in his belt. The wolf’s growling escalating in volume as he tries to think of a way to draw away his attention, beguile him enough that he’d leave an opening so Castle could recover his late wife’s ring.

Frank muses that he should feel afraid. The only thing he can see, however, are not the wolf’s eyes, but the eyes of desperate men ready to tear at each other’s throats. The beast approaches him, step by step, and the huntsman’s is convinced he’d never seen a wolf this big before. 

His eyes stray to his wife’s ring, once more. He does not wish to loose it, but the thought of killing a creature that holds no ill intent, no greed, no cruelty for cruelty’s sake in their hearts is nothing but distasteful. He knows he could kill the wolf easily. It’s deeply ingrained in his nature after years of serving for the queen’s army. War made him an instrument of death. But now, his hands loose their poise, and he leaves the knife pointing downwards. 

A small creak, far above his head, catches his attention. He spots the figure of a ginger, crystal-eyed cat lurking high above in a branch. It observes him, eyes straying to the wolf only to turn his witty, inquisitive eyes back to Frank’s form, as if to ask inquire  _ “what are you going to do about that?”. _

He remembers his mother’s words then. He wonders if it’s a witch, high above in the tree, taunting him in his last seconds of life. He hopes, if they are a witch, that they will take his body far away. Some kids wonder to the forest, sometimes, and he doesn’t want them to find a desecrated corpse rotting on their way.

He remembers his commander’s words, too. Take your weapon, wield it, kill the enemy, protect your battalion, survive for another battle. 

It’s to late to try and fight now, as the huge body collapses against his, powerful jaws closing on his side, fangs deep into his guts. He is tackled to the ground by the wolf’s heavy weight, and his instincts kick in. He pummels and bashes against the animal’s head until it lets him go. For some reason, the wolf does not attack him again, issuing a plaintive whine for something Frank can’t see. 

He only sees the tree tops and the evening sky. The sun is slowly fading out, the dark oranges and greys merging into deep, inky black.

Frank’s bleeding profusely. Smells his blood as it sheds all over the dry leaves in the forest grounds. He hears leaves rustle, something or someone approaching his soon-to-be-dead body.

How fitting that he wouldn't die at the battlefield with his brothers, or at home by his family's side. He will die alone in the woods, killed by a creature that carries none of the sin and the cruelty of mankind. Frank finds it relieving in a way. 

His eyes peek at a red cloth as it shines in the distance, the wolf appeased and seemingly trotting by the person’s side, his wife's ring glints in delicate blurry hands.

“ _ Thank you for warning me, Foggy” _

He feels a gentle touch to his cheek, his eyes closing slowly. He peeks at icy blue irises and surrenders to the dark.

Somehow, Frank doesn’t wake to the pit of flames of eternal damnation. Neither to the ethereal light of peace. He does, however, wake up to the sound of a crepitating fireplace, the smell of sweet herbs, and finally, when he opens his eyes, to the sight of a wooden ceiling lighted by a flickering candlelight. 

His body hugged by a mattress that feels soft and extremely comfortable, unlike the straw mattress he sleep in his hut. His hunting knife is still lodged in his belt when he fumbles around looking for it. 

He’s not in his hut, he’s still armed. It’s all he can think of, for the first few seconds. 

And then, his body registers overwhelming pain on his side. Immediately, Frank recalls great yellow eyes, a ginger cat, red cloth. Remembering the cloth is what makes Frank think twice before making a move - maybe the crown soldiers finally got to him? It doesn’t seem probable, he’s been gone for years now. Would they still be on the hunt for a simple deserter? It’s not like Frank is the first, probably not the last.

“I must admit to you” his body jumps in surprise at the soft-spoken, quiet voice coming from his right “Not many men or women have the courage to wander these woods at night. Perhaps, for the ghost stories. Perhaps, for it’s hidden beasts. But I presume you understand that by now” 

His eyes wonder rapidly through the room, finding the cot to be placed somewhere next to a kitchen. The walls have dried flowers and plants hanging upside down, and some pots of plants Frank had never encountered before. The source of the voice however, a silhouette of a figure, is by the kitchen counter. A woman’s figure.

The voice, however, confounds him. Was it really-?

When the person comes closer, it becomes clear he’s a man. He notices the sharp jaw and the lack of swelling on the chest area. The doe eyes are light icy blue, like those of the ginger cat above perched on the tree branches. He’s a particularly androgynous man, all feline grace on his movements as he approaches Castle’s laying form.

Frank understands why, then, the other habitants of the village would think this man a pagan. He wears a pagan symbol painted in red in his forehead, after all. A circle with two crescent moons by each side. He strays his gaze down to the man’s eyes once more, and realizes they stare blankly somewhere to Frank’s shoulders.

Oh, he’s blind. The ginger cat didn’t seem blind, gazing exactly into Frank’s eyes and the wolf’s growling form. Maybe he’s been daydreaming in the midst of all the nervous energy pumping through his body, thinking those would be his final moments on Earth.

The unknown man, who moves more like a wild creature with it’s head tilting and nimble fingers, is a very beautiful man, Frank realizes soon. He has the doe eyes together with plush, pink lips, a fair skin dotted by small freckles from sun exposure. He wears a thick, deep red wool sweater that hangs off his frame, exposing flushed shoulders. The sweater is tucked inside a long brown skirt, thick for the autumn weather. 

Frank can peek white stockings disappearing inside weathered brown boots. 

He had seen a lot, during his days at war and his years as a city man. He had never, however, seen a man who looked so ethereal and dangerous, at the same time.

If the ginger cat wasn’t a daydream, was this a witch? Which of the stories should he believe in? The one where they lured men with their beauty and left them behind, to lose their wits? Or the ones they opened them up, killed them to use their organs to whatever rituals they did?

Maybe none of them. None of them started with a witch saving a foolhardy man from the grasps of a wolf.

“You must be disorientated. My name is Matthew. I found you hurt in the woods sometime before the sunset completely whisked away to a black sky. This,” his hand dips inside a pocket in his long skirt. It’s the first Frank had seen a man in a skirt that wasn’t a covenant “I believe, is what you were looking for when you, very foolishly, decided to venture the woods at this time”

Metal glinted on his delicate fingers.

Maria’s wedding ring.

For saving his life, Frank wouldn’t have thanked this man as sincerely as he does now, with his wife’s ring safe in his unsteady hands. He grips it tight against his fingers.

“Thank you” his voice is but a wisp, tired and fatigued. 

“You should thank Foggy, not me”

_ Thank you for warning me, Foggy. _

Another witch, perhaps? Did they live together? And what kind of name is Foggy, anyway?

“Foggy?” The unknown man,  _ Matthew,  _ his brain supplies, whistles lightly and a answering meow immediately comes from next room. Frank’s eyes find the limber figure of the ginger cat, with it’s slightly darker stripes and clear blue eyes. The cat is big but it immediately finds a home in his owner’s shoulders. Balancing his body easily and putting his eyes on Frank with the same expression he wore on the woods.

The cat meows loudly.

“You’re right. The tea should be ready by now”

“You can... talk to cats?” Matt chuckles, shaking his head. But doesn’t answer the question, only standing up from his place sitting by Frank’s side and going after the pot of steaming water and herbs.

He can see the difference in their eyes. The cat’s pupils immediately dilate when the candlelight flickers. Matthew’s, however, don’t. They keep staring into the wall sightlessly, a small smile on his face as he fumbles around for two teacups. 

He’s bringing them to Frank’s beside, when he can’t help but make a question that lingers in his mind.

“Did you trade those eyes for the Devil?” Matthew seems surprised, eyes widening a bit. He does something unexpected however, his face completely lightens up as he giggles like a kid, amused by the question. He slowly gives the teacup to Frank as he sits down, still giggling sporadically. 

“No, I did not. My sight was taken from me when I was young. Now, if the men who burned them were spawns of the Devil or not, I’m not aware” he’s joking, Frank realizes. Amused smile stitched to his face in a soft, relaxed expression. He grunts in response, not knowing how to interact with the most intriguing and exotic person he has ever met.

His gaze stray down to the teacup, the smell is good. He is, however, awry of drinking something off a stranger’s hands when they wear pagan symbols to their foreheads and talk to cats.

“Here” Matthew takes his teacup from his hands, giving a sip, only to return to him once more “Now, if it’s poisoned, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you didn’t go on to the other side on your own” Frank can’t help but snort at the sassy man, and Matthew seems pleased. 

“Frank. ‘s my name” 

“Well, Frank. I imagine a huntsman like yourself, if that knife of yours tells me anything, has a lot of chores and business to attend to. Your wounds were really deep, however, and I don’t think you’ll be able to walk for a while. If it’s amenable to you, I think it’s wise to rest for a few days, let yourself heal. When you can move on your own, you go your own way. I’m sure in a week or two you’ll be fully functional again”

“Yeah” Frank doesn’t know what to say to the offer, it seems a great kindness, it could also be a trap. This man, however, doesn’t seem the least dishonest as he smiles at him patiently “I have nothing to repay you with, for your help”

“Well, winter is approaching. I would appreciate a good fur to sleep on, it gets really cold in the woods”

“Yeah. Alright” 

He smiles at him sweetly. They drink their tea and Frank feels the pain dissipating in his side. The cat lays by his feet as Matthew checks on his wounds, hands touching softly and carefully around it. He gets to see his auburn hair up close and his icy, pretty eyes.

One of the first thing Frank learns is that Matthew has a good ear. And is most definitely a witch. Blind as he is, the redhead can still always tell where his belongings, his cat and Frank are dwelling. The Foggy Cat, as he called him, seemed to be quite the indecisive creature. Sometimes, he’d purr and curl himself up at Frank’s feet. The next day, he’d hiss and yowl at him like warning his owner of a predator.

Matthew always notices when his cat is silently prowling closer to Frank, as if catching a prey, and he’d click his tongue. Foggy always seemed to most displeased to be interrupted in his little game of hunt. Frank being ten times his size or not.

He also always notices when things are about to fall, catching them easily. Smells weather changes before they come, preparing himself for autumn rain in the morning even when it only comes by midnight. 

Frank concludes he has a gift. The men and women at the village, he knows, would call it the Devil’s touch. A curse. Paganism.

Matthew seems averse to wearing breeches, so beneath his skirts, long or above the knee, he wears stockings of different colors. Thick ones, to keep his long legs warm. And always practical leather hide boots. 

He asks once, why is it he is averse to wearing anything but skirts or long dresses. The witch answers with a small smile that they won’t get in his way, unlike heavy breeches.

“It’s also appropriate” that’s what gives Castle a pause.

“Appropriate?” 

Matthew ponders, clearly wondering if he should answer the question or not. His sigh of resignation precedes his response. 

“The mothers and fathers of my... people, they all wore skirts. So their women wouldn’t be hunted and taken. If they ought to be, that the cowards hunted all of them, women or men. For they were the same. Equal in power, equal in prowess, in place and in heart” 

A women’s place. He remembers how Maria, once they met, talked about how trapped she felt at the courting and family meetings. She was supposed to be silent, at all times. Never talk out of turn, unless addressed. Frank had wondered about it back then, he wonders about it now. 

His eyes keep staring at Matthew, who patiently awaits a reaction. 

“Your people... they live in villages? Cities?”

“Villages. But not any longer. Most of them live in places men of God can never reach”

“They hide it with witchcraft?” He had smile at Frank, lounging by the chair with a pained expression, while he kneaded a dough. 

“Hum. And trees too” that had startled a laugh out of the huntsman, Matthew is a sassy thing.

After that conversation, his host seems more comfortable around him, probably after making sure Frank wouldn’t hobble back to the village and tell them the whereabouts of the witch’s house. He had understood the redheaded man to be a witch, but to see what his abilities consisted of was another thing altogether.

Initially, he gives Frank quite the scare, when he appears in his room with a flame settled in his palm. No candle or firewood in sight. He slowly calms down, wonder washing over him, when he transfers it to very carefully to his bedside candle holder, so Frank can see the books Matt lent him. He had learned to read when he went to the city, but some of the words, Frank had never once heard before.

He finds out, Matthew’s ability is like a connection to pure nature. The roots of the tree seem to answer Matt’s fingers as he twiddles them mellowly, sightless eyes turned up towards the sun. The wind seems to answer to his voice, the water to his touch.

Fire seemed to be connected to his very being. He once indulged Frank, showing his how he created it. Fingertips rubbing together before opening up and letting fire blossom. He had whispered against it, and the shape of a deer came out of it, galloping, leaving embers behind. It comes closer to him and Frank tries to get away, trying to not be burned. 

Matthew however, blows against the tiny deer and it turns to pure ice, still moving, playing around his shoulders.

He remembered wondering why he wasn’t afraid, and instead, completely captivated by it. By  _ him.  _

Objects, sometimes, float light weightless feathers towards Matt’s hands, specially, it seems, when he’s distracted and humming as he bakes. He seems to love baking things and witnessing Frank enjoying himself like a kid at the baker’s house.

Matthew, he learns, in less than five days by his side, is not tainted by the Devil’s touch, but a embodiment of life in it’s purest form. Like vivid, burning wild fire. He knows things Frank never dreamed off. Finds plants hidden that make him forget completely of the pain that once assaulted his side every time he moved. He makes salves and ointments, tea, breads and things he scoffs every time Frank calls  _ potion.  _ Because  _ it’s a brew, not a potion. You heard too much fairytales. _

He was once upset, when he found a fox sick and dying in the woods. Frank had been by his side, and watched as his grief turned the ground to ice slowly. Until he blinked, shaking his head, and it immediately melted over into the browns, dark greens and oranges of the autumn leaves.

When he seemed particularly happy, however, flowers would  _ bloom.  _ He saw it happen only twice. First, when he complimented his baked goods. And then, when Frank was able to stand up on his own for the first time. In the ground beneath them, between the hardwood planks, little calendulas popped and blossomed. 

At the end of the first week of Castle’s stay in the witch’s hut, Matthew came home with scraped knees and dirty black stockings. His above the knee skirt slightly muddied at the hem. He has his usual basket of herbs, plants and roots brimming with one Frank had never once seen, together with some yellowish roots, lavender, foxglove and hemlock. 

Mattie smiles self-depreciatively as he wipes the twigs off his hair, he clearly went out of his way to get something. He leaves the basket by the counter and helps Frank hobble slowly to the kitchen chair.

“Another magic plant of yours?”

“Not magic plant, silly. Nature does all the magic by herself” he tells him teasingly, blind eyes clever although they never meet his own. “I noticed you bear a lot of scars. I know of a balm that can rid you of much pain. Ease the stinging and stretching from the deeper ones”

“Really?” a balm for scars, he had never heard of such a thing in the city. Probably for people there are too focused on their perfect figures, their reputation. The man before him is the freest spirit he has ever known, and also a witch, he should not be surprised.

“Yes” he seems quiet for a moment, and Frank’s eyes immediately turn downcast, finding the ground beneath his socked feet shimmering with a thin layer of ice. He’s upset. He turns a sad smile Frank’s way, probably noticing his realization. He always seemed to know.

“Were you hurt?” his voice is but a whisper, a wistful one. He’s saddened to imagine it, that a soul so pure, so caring, would be hurt. But he remember his words when they first met.

_ My sight was taken away from me when I was young. Now, if the men who burned them were spawns of the Devil or not... _

It explains, surely, why the skin around his icy blue eyes is slightly red, fading to pinkish tones. Scar tissue.

Matthew leaves the roots boiling together with the unknown plant and the other ingredients he had already salvaged before. He comes closer to Frank’s sitting form, slotting his slight body between the huntsman’s legs, the hem of his skirt brushing against his thighs. Castle, instinctively brings his hands to steady him on his hips, as he unbuckles the belt holding the skirt, pulling his thick autumn sweater up together with his creamy wool shirt. 

Frank immediately notices the big patch of pinkish skin, circular and bright against the freckled, milky tone of his body. It stretches towards his trim waist, but it’s clear it healed really well. It’s slightly ragged on its shape, it looks like a burn scar.

_ The men who burned them _

His fingers stretch to touch them lightly to the scar tissue, tracing it’s edges, caressing the skin around it. Matthew shivers, peach fuzz of his body hair standing up.

“I lived in a village, miles far from here” his voice is low, and he notices then how close they are. Frank is entranced by his voice, angered with the men who caused his pain. “The people believed me touched by the Devil, for when I was upset or really happy, things would happen around me that they couldn’t fully comprehend or explain. So they came after me and my father with torches, snatched me up from my bed before father could do anything. Put my eyes under boiling water, peppers, hogweed, anything they could find that could damage them. 

“They believed, if I saw their faces, I’d make dolls out of them and control their wills and wishes. When father came out to a blinded son, bleeding eyes and burned face, he raged against them. They burned him with torches, tried to do the same with me. 

“How did you escape?” he whispers then, big hands slotted against a small waist, holding him steady, giving him comfort.

“I lashed out. Made their muscles stop working, let the dark black birds surround them, take away the light as they did to me. Only for the few minutes I need to run to the woods and escape. I met a girl like me, there. Smelled like burnt flesh and open wounds. She had a peculiar name, and she stayed with me for years to come. A sister.”

Frank caresses his waist, the skin of his scarred belly. Matthew shivers once more, body set alight by the affection.

“We met people like us. A village of our tribe. When we grew older, we left and built this place. Like twins of different mothers, we felt like”

“What happened to her?”

“The people from the village spotted her one day. Saw her marks and her basket with roots and plants and decided she was a threat. They took her by surprise. She could have escaped, but not without hurting them. They were fathers and mothers, so Ell didn’t fight. They burned her alive at the city square. When I heard her screams, she was lost to the flames already”

Frank sighs, helping Matthew to buckle his belt, tuck his shirt inside it. He leaves the sweater to warm him up. Lets his fingertips trail from his collarbones to his face, caressing skin. And then burying them into his auburn, soft hair.

“Men are cruel, Mattie. I've seen it. I've done it. I've taken men from their parents and from their kids in the wars we waged. We’d set houses on fire and then feast. They tell you to do it in the name of God and the Queen and, in the end, it’s just politics, just interests” 

“But you’re not there anymore”

“I had nothing left to lose” Matt understands it for what it is, putting a hand on top of Frank’s which stills touches his neck.

“You can start over. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. But in the meantime, feel life Frank. Here is all nature, wild life and air. No men, no war, no politics” he smiles down at the Huntsman, eyes shiny against the flickering candlelight and fireplace “I know of men and women of good hearts, you know? And of different gods, too. The gods of fire, air, water and earth. Of life and death. Of healing and war. Of the sun and the moon. But the god of Christian men? I do not worship him any longer. He was the god my father whispered prayers to before he was killed. He was the god those men and women had on their lips when they burned my sister in a wooden cross”

Castle stands up slowly then, the wound still sensitive on his side. His hands come from his neck to trace his face. Candidly, he places a warm kiss on the shorter man’s cheek. His skin is smooth underneath his lips, smelling of the bathing oils and scented soaps the man uses, when he brings Frank outside, to heated water casks and helps him bathe. He can bathe alone by now, even if he felt spoiled still by the man’s attention.

He smiles to Frank once more, sightless eyes settling on his cheek. He weaves himself gently out of Frank’s touch, a dismayed expression on his face, even as he makes his way to the now creamy brew in his pot.

“What did you use in it?

“Candelilla wax, calendula roots, hemlock, grinded foxglove, dried lavender, coconut butter, rose oil, chamomile and crushed rose hip seeds. And, of course” he moves his fingers, making a show out of making the pot spill the contents in jar by itself. “A little bit of Mother Nature’s blessing” he shows him the peculiar flower he had found. “This is a red helleborine. A special one, if you will” Matt puts the bud carefully against his palm, smoothing it with his finger tips until a weird, dark red liquid drops to the creamy salve. 

It slowly turns pink and glittering in light.

“Now. Take off your shirt and sit with you back tuned to me. It’s where most of the damage is at, correct?”

“Yeah” he does what he says, sitting down slowly, mindful of the still healing bite wound by his side. Frank can feel a chilly breeze as Matt breathes ice cold over the salve. It cools immediately. He’ll never seize to be surprised.

With his hands soft and gentle, he maps his scars, slowly massaging the salve against it. How someone so alive and pure would touch him so easily is a mystery. He suddenly wants to warn Mattie of how  _ dangerous  _ he can be. Of how easily he has broken man’s necks and opened their guts. 

But he remembers all the things those two, delicate hands could do. How he had stopped a village of furious men from killing him as kid. 

“Oh sweet Brigid, I hope this rids you of all this pain” Matthew whispers, voice clearly concerned. Frank does a curious double take.

“Brigid?”

“Hum..? Yes, the god of healing. Like Ragana, a witch goddess, protector of the healers. And all the hooded spirits,” he explains, carefully, distracted as he keeps massaging Frank’s back. It’s soothing. “Where a hooded spirit appears, they say, a dark flower turns light and health is to be expected. Ianuaria and her bulls and doves rustle leaves and tree tops, bringing health and healing for the sick and the wounded” 

Matthew opens his hand by Frank’s side then, prompting him to look and a dark red flower blooms in his palm. The dark flower rests in frank's leg and, for his surprise, slowly turns to a pinkish white color. Matt doesn't react and frank remembers, for all that his senses are sharp and his abilities give him a wide range of perceptions, Matthew still can’t see colors.

“It changed”

“Hum... is it lighter now?”

“Yes.. ‘tis pink. Even the stem is light green now" Matt smiles at that, as he goes back to massaging salve into his old scars. So very careful. So very affectionate.

“Then the hooded spirits wish you health, Frank”

“You know... so much” Matt smiles, and rests his chin in his shoulder. The warmth, above all else, and the touch, is what makes his body completely relax against the delicate hands on his skin.

“I had good teachers” he answers, witfully. “And above that, I try to listen. To their whispers. You can always hear them if you just wait patiently enough” his hands massage an old sword wound that still tingles sometimes. 

Matt keeps taking care of him with immense patience and kindness, it makes Castle wonder why he’d bother with a broken soldier like himself, a deserter of the crown, a quiet brooding huntsman.

But he does. He takes care of him like Frank deserves it. As if he’s worth any of it.

Frank asks of the God he once believe in why would his worshipers ever find the Devil in a man like Matthew. He asks of the Gods Matt believes in that they look after him, at all times. When he’s almost asleep, he tells his wife he is here now, tethered to the now and to life, for the first time since their deaths. 

By the half of the second week, Frank can move on his own and stay up for long periods of time. He uses that to help Mattie in whatever ways he can. To fix leaks on the wooden roof, to cut wood for his fireplace, to help him distinguish flowers that confound him by scent, but that Castle can easily pick apart by sight. 

He feels good to save him the trouble, to help him in daily tasks. It feels oddly domestic, and he has a sudden view of this being what his life could look like if only he decided to stay. He wonders if Mattie would want that, if he does want that. He knows, after all, that Frank is perfectly capable to walk back to his hut by now. But he doesn’t, and the witch never says a word, although his seem to smile every time Frank calls out  _ good night. _

As if his presence was soothing. Good.

Frank finds himself enamored the day he sees him sitting in a tree stump, making a crown of plants and flowers and weaving them together while he hums to the woods. The wind answers it, it seems. Flutters around him like caressing his skin. 

When a small, blue flower falls from his grasps, his mouth forms a tiny  _ oh _ , but he tilts his head and it floats back to his side by it’s own and Mattie snatches out of thin air. He keeps weaving them together until he’s satisfied at the results, sniffing the flowers and indulging himself in the scents. 

He paints a small symbol on the back of the crown with a red tint that seems to come right out of his finger. It weaves itself strongly together, roots tying knots. It seems to please him, and Matt gets up then and titters a sound. Frank observed as a fox slowly perked up from it’s hiding place and started coming after Matthew, as if trained like a domestic dog.

He puts the flower crown in his hair, tilting it down like offering it to the wild animal. The red fox sniffs it and sits by his side almost immediately, as if deciding it had found a friend. Mattie pets the fox all afternoon.

When the redhead comes inside, the sun beginning to set, he takes off the crown but frank takes it before he drops it and puts it back in his head.

“Fits you. Perfectly” Castle can’t help the smile that stretches against his lips. It’s not something he’s used to. He probably smiled more in the span of a week and a half than he did in the last three years. Mattie graces him with a beaming smile back.

His fingers, slightly stained by the red tint, come to feel Frank’s face. Tracing his features with care, attuned to this one sense.

“You have such a beautiful face” the witch whispers it with such reverence and conviction, Frank can’t help but believe his words, as much as they seem so far fetched. 

He leans into the touch, not daring to close his eyes and loose the sight of him. It’s such an ethereal moment, the sunlight warming their skins, their distance closing in.

Matt stands on his toes then, all feline grace and slim movements. Frank can’t do anything but meet his lips with his own. He kisses him with reverence too, with devotion. Soft, plush lips feeling perfect as they slot close and so gentle still. Always. A surge of protectiveness and affection runs deep to his bones then, making his whole structure shake.

Frank feels as it gets warmer around them, and Matt's fingers find his hair, holding him closer, closer,  _ closer.  _ His stubble scratches at the smaller man's clean skin, rubbing against him as he moves languidly into the kiss. Lets his tongue caress the outline of his mouth, and the inside it, rubbing it against Matt's. 

It feels warm and perfect and all that he needed.

A small crackle of energy startle his eyes open, and he notices something like a lit spark by his side. A small lightning with no thunder. He jumps away, caught off guard and Mattie immediately groans.

“I’m sorry- so sorry... I can’t... control it sometimes, I’m sorry, did I hurt you?” his fingers spark again, and Frank finally understands it. Like tiny lightning spreading underneath his skin, pure energy glittering in violet and pink tones spread from the tips of his fingers to his wrists and arms. 

It’s beautiful. Like all there is to him.

He takes his hands, unafraid, kissing them. Mattie would never hurt him, or anyone, for that matter. It’s just not his nature. To protect others, maybe. But never hurt.

“Don’t apologize. Not for your nature. It’s beautiful” he comes closer again, nose nudging Mattie’s. “You are beautiful, sweetheart” He sees something right above him and his eyes stray upwards, only to find all the flowers in his crown blooming to life, blossoming big, shiny and colorful. The scents are delightful as they mix together. “You’re life itself Mattie. You are a wonder” he whispers by his ear. Kisses him once more.

They fall asleep on the same cot, then. Matthew hides against his chest during the night, Foggy meowing by their feet until he finds the perfect spot to cuddle. He realizes then, Frank’s not the only one overwhelmed by the affection, the acceptance and care. Just like him, this lovely man is unused to it. Living alone in the woods but for his cat and the company of the wild animals around him.

He vows to show him everyday. Acceptance, care, affection. Everything he wants. Anything he needs.

Frank never goes back to the village.


End file.
